And now, ten days into December, Jefferson’s Road: The Tree of Liberty is finished! I wrote the final words around 6:00 this morning and typed “The End.” Final word count tally: 84,703 words. That means this book is about 10K words longer than the previous “mile” in the road.
My son asks me, “Do you still feel as excited now when you finish a book as the first time?” The answer, of course, is “No.” Finishing a book now is more of a relief than an elation. I still enjoy doing it, but I think I enjoy the process more. Although at this point, the most satisfying part is knowing that I can move yet another project off my over-burdened plate and concentrate on the next project.
In The Widening Gyre is next on the list. There’s 57K words finished on that book, and if I keep to my current pace (50K per month), I’ll have it wrapped up before Christmas. This will give us three books to move forward into the new year. Total of nine books now written (wow!), shortly to become ten.
At this point, I still have some minor editing to do on Tree, as well as writing the first chapter of the fourth book so I can pull a teaser from it for the back of the book. As well as an Afterword, though that isn’t hardly as necessary. I’ve started a draft on Amazon for the book – have to do the same thing for the next two as well, of course. And I have to do the same over at Createspace.
The main thing, however, is getting the book into a suitable kindle format and securing BETA readers to give it a run through. Some of you will be getting an email from me shortly, asking to participate. If you don’t get one and would like to be a BETA reader, drop me a line or leave a comment on this post indicating your interest.
On a related note, I’m almost at six weeks of writing at this accelerated (for me) pace, and it looks like I’ll make it to the “I’ve formed a new habit!” level soon. Good news for my back list!
Here’s a good Afterword for ya’: I FINALLY FINISHED THIS MISERABLE THING AND ONCE I’M DONE WITH THIS STUPID YA BOOK I CAN ACTUALLY WORK ON SOMETHING THAT I WANT TOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Maybe not? Pooey.
I’m glad you finished your third book in the series. I’m surprised you didn’t make any mention that you’re halfway through the Jefferson’s Road series. Question: What will it be like finishing a series?
Once your done with the Gyre, what will you do for 2013 (if Obama isn’t the key to the end of the Mayan Calender. What’s so important about a stupid calendar ending anyway?).
Well, let’s see, you got the fourth Jefferson’s Road book, but I think you should get to some things that you really want to write. You have Descent, but you have no idea where’s that going. You have that space opera, too. Of course, you fell into another trap of a book series, which will be 9 books long! Then there’s the Blood-eater’s Coven (Why are you using “blood-eater”? Are you talking about Vampires or those Magick Witches?). The third Jonathan Monroe book, but you already have the second once finished so you don’t have to worry much. The sequel to Spilled Milk, that Santa Claus story, and I suppose a few other ideas that you haven’t touched in a long time. Maybe you should dig around in the archives.
You’d have to have read “Eye of Darkness” to get the whole sense of what a “Blood-eater” is, but yes, it does include witches and vampires and such. No, nothing Twilight and they don’t SPARKLE or TWINKLE or anything such stupid things like that. My vampires will be undead monster type things. Nothing very pleasant or attractive about them at all.
And I do want to write Jefferson’s Road, David. I’m just a little fried on it at the moment. I will dig around in the archives to see if there’s anything half finished I might salvage. I’ve got a calendar to plan out, y’know.
What will it be like to finish a series? I dunno. I guess we’ll find out in a few years!
Personally, I think vampires would be a little scarier if they sparkled XD.
BETA! BETA! BETA! BETA!